C?onfused and searching Dear Emerald,

My emr started at work, he told his wife about us and that he wished to leave. Well he came in the next morning and told me he could not walk out on the kids. Wife wanted to work it out. We cried together. I did not go to work the following day.

About two weeks later we were back in each others arms. It started again. During that time he and wife were in counseling. We must have broke up 3-4 times during the next nine months. During this time the wife of course insisting he find a new job. Actually became very angry with me for not taking a position in a different branch.

Anyway he found a new job. We continued the relationship. I became PG.

Thought best thing for all was to abort. I am divorced with three children and he also has three. I was so wrong. I still ache about this.

Wife found out about us again. She ask him to leave he did. Spent three months either at my house or at a friends.

As soon as his parents applied the pressure on him he left me a note and the key to my house. This almost literally killed me. I suffered a complete emotional and mental breakdown. In counsling on meds etc.

Well three months after that he calls, we meet and bam stupid stupid me we get involved again. My therapist told me it was extremely dangerous for me to do this again. Well, wife became suspicious again. He of course said "need to get her under control" this is not goodbye but have to be under house arrest for awhile. So, I told him that she will always be his controller and that I needed to put all this behind me and move on, all the wonderful and hurtful times.

Problem is his presence haunts me. I have tried to change my home as much as possible, But it is the work that is killing me. Just today and old client called looking for him. I must be professional and reply. I pick up files that have his hand writting on them. It brings back all the hurt. All the longing and loneliness, the guilt the shame and the self hatred. I think for my sake I should find another job mut love the one I have. It pays me well allows me the time.

Signed,
So confused and searching

Dear So confused and searching

I am so sorry for your pain.

So many OWs live - literally live - for the dream of the day when MM tells them - I'm leaving my Wife and coming for You!

Your letter is one of many I have received from OWs who have felt the high of that unbelievable moment, yet then suffered the indescribable stress and heartache of life with the MM-Eggo.

I'm making a joke, but the pain is so real. The Eggo is the MM who leaves her for you, leaves you for her, leaves her again for you, etc. While he is busy packing and hurtling himself between the two addresses, the women in his life go nuts from the stress of the competition, the lying, the jealousy and the fundamental instability of their emotional lives.

Unfortunately, your story is not unique. I am receiving many letters from women who have gone thru this. Some have become pregnant while he was living with them yet gave birth after Papa Eggo bounced back to his Wife. Some, like you, decided to abort and live with the grief of that loss far longer than they grieve the loss of their Eggo.

The only thing I could recommend for you besides all of the right things that you are doing - therapy, prescribed medications, changing your environment, etc. - is to get deep into grief work.

It is always my opinion that when we get ourselves into such horrifically painful situations as adults, we are opening old wounds that MUST be opened in order for us to move forward in our emtional/ spiritual/ psychological lives.

Some women need to fight so hard for daddy's (MMs) love until they are in enough pain to stop and instead fight to love themselves. Some women rant and rave at MMs horrific, demon-like, bitchqueen wife as a way to feel anger at mommy that may have been buried for decades.

Some women need to LOSE themselves so completely to a man who cannot be there for them before they finally, finally start the work of FINDING themselves.

We can mix and match, you know. In our exquisite creativity as human beings, we can create and re-create an endless panorama of scenarios whose purpose is, in my opinion, ALWAYS the same: to teach us how to be whole, exactly as we are. That means love ourselves.

Your losses are telling you where your work needs to be done. What else in your life needs grieving? What losses are buried so deep you needed this to cut through your defenses and open the old wounds? The pain is a reminder to do the work. The pain is also a way of trying to make sure we never go there again.

Grief is a way of healing. Please do it thoroughly. Do not deny your right to feel your losses, but feel them and move on. Heal the wounds with love from as many healthy sources as you can find, and I guarantee you Mr. Eggo will not torment you anymore.

It takes time, but it is possible. I know this for a fact.

Hugs - e

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